The
smartphone wars are hot right now with Android devices starting to
take over the market and the Apple iPhone continuing to burn up the
sales charts. While the iPhone remains shackled to AT&T for now,
Android devices are available on all major carriers and many of the
smaller regional carriers as well.

One of the latest Android
devices to land on the market is the Motorola Droid X that launched
officially today. The Droid X has been
previewed and had its share of hands on treatments already
so most buyers know exactly what the phone can do.

The Droid X
is selling for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a new two-year
customer agreement. The Android device operates on the 3G network
Verizon owns and has a gigantic screen that will make some iPhone
users jealous. The big display measures a generous 4.3-inches. Other
features of the handset include an 8-megapixel camera and the ability
to record HD video.

On-board memory for the Droid X is 8GB
with a 16GB microSDHC card shipping with the handset. Along with the
launch of the Droid X is a new 32GB microSDHC card that is a Verizon
Wireless exclusive from SanDisk. Buyers of the Droid X who also get
the 32GB microSDHC card at the same time will get $50 off the price
of the memory card and bring the total storage capacity of the Droid
X to 40GB. With the discount, the 32GB memory card will cost $99.

Verizon
is also allowing all current customers who have contracts ending by
December 31, 2010 to upgrade to the Droid X with no penalties.

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I'm not defending the practice, BUT, I imagine their argument would be along the lines of not wanting to deal with people trying to claim warranty service on a phone that has been hacked. Now, if there was some way for a user to acknowledge that they were voiding their warranty and then allow them to continue, that might be a better option for everyone.

There probably a lot of people who would try, if it was not discouraged, and then they might well break their phone or mess it up some-how, who don;t want to pay to get it fixed either.

Also, I might have hacked my Wii, but got bored of it after a while and can't be bothered to research fixing it/getting it hacked properly or reverting it back to whatever. So now I might have a Wii sat in my living room that I can't really do much with, and is not earning Nintendo any money. That would be all my fault of course, but I'm sure that I would not be the only person who might have a go at these things and then looses interest, with the lost revenue that that might bring. In saying that, there's not much point in getting my Wii working again, had it had the problems described above :) i might want to play Mario Galaxy 2 I suppose.

People are funny creatures, and they do not all act as you might expect, or be willing to do what you might be willing to. Companies need to take that into account when deciding on policies and it's just easier to say no modding allowed frankly.

Now if they made hacking/modding easier then I might not have the trouble as described above, if I had hacked my Wii that is (not that I have, I'm a good boy)but I think we all know why people want to hack and mod deceives. It's to by-pass income streams and get things for free, or to do things that devices shouldn't or are not licensed too. Losing the manufacturer or their affiliates money, and possibly opening them up to legal issues further down the line if their devices are used to do things which they shouldn't be.